


Distance, Between Two Points

by Byrcca



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Depression, Emotional Hurt, Episode: s04e15 Hunters, Episode: s04e18-19 The Killing Game, Episode: s04e24 Demon, Episode: s05e03 Extreme Risk, F/M, dealing with death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:27:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28457529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Byrcca/pseuds/Byrcca
Summary: 2020 has taken its toll, and more than its pound of flesh. 2374 turned out to be a pretty bad year for B’Elanna, too. There aren’t any answers here and, really, no explanations either. But it demanded to be written.
Relationships: Tom Paris/B'Elanna Torres
Comments: 14
Kudos: 32





	Distance, Between Two Points

**Author's Note:**

> Added up, a hundred years of friendship, give or take. It would be more poetic if it were 75 but life isn’t fiction and loss isn’t entertainment. For Pam, my ‘adopted’ sister who took me out to clubs at 15 to dance and drink bad house wine. And for Sue, my heart-sister, who was there beside me for EVERYTHING except this because she went first. For Cat, who encouraged this foolishness twenty years ago and believed in OTP. And even for you, Loretta, though we haven’t spoken since I upped stakes back when the kids were still kids, because I remember you. And for LA, and Vic, and Fi, and Mike, and KT, and LM, and C (though I can’t remember if it was this year or last - my apologies), because I know how it feels when you lose your father. And for Sarah, because pain finds you even when you think you’ve already been dealt your share. And for you, yes YOU (and your cousin), because pain shared is supposed to be pain halved, but it doesn’t really work out that way. 
> 
> For everyone who lost someone in 2020, Happy New Year.

***

“ _I learned this morning that a lot of my friends are dead. And I’ve gone from being so angry that I wanted to kill someone to crying for an hour. And I’m just trying to… to accept it and move on._ ”

Distance. It’s not the same as space. Space is when people leave me alone. Avoid my bad mood in case my temper zeros in on them like a fucking photon torpedo.

Distance is… removed. Distance is _nothing_. And it’s cold and still. Space roils and bubbles and flares, but distance is quiet. It’s a lack of something. Someone. They say the shortest distance between two points is a straight line; no peaks or valleys. No dips or spikes. A flat line. Flatline. And I’m trying so hard to stay smooth and flat and cold, to not flare up in hot, jagged points. I don’t want to think about it now; I need some distance before I can even begin to believe it’s true.

** 

The chime sounded, snapping her out of a doze. She blinked and focused on the door. She hadn’t been sleeping, but she’d been spaced out, staring into the distance without seeing her quarters, not-thinking. She still felt suspended in time, the adrenaline hangover from the fight with the Hirogen dulling her body and mind. 

The chime rang again and B’Elanna stood up from the couch and scrubbed her face. “Alright!” she snapped. She felt exhaustion press down on her as she walked the few steps to her doorway. “What?” Tom stood there, his body bent toward her, his expression morphing from worry to guarded concern. “Oh,” she said. She stepped back, more from a desire to put some room between them than to encourage him to enter her quarters. He took her gesture as an invitation and did so, anyway. 

“I didn’t see you in the mess.” 

As opening lines went, it was spot-on Tom Paris: not quite a statement but not really a question, either. An open-ended observation that left room for her to agree, or to deny, or to elaborate. It was more an invitation to a conversation than an opening salvo. She couldn’t let it just hang in the air. “I wasn’t hungry.” This morning, they’d agreed to meet for dinner. The day had gotten in the way. 

“Well, turns out it's for the best: Neelix’ coccal root stew should have stayed buried. That was a joke,” he prompted. 

She realized that she was staring at him, and she puffed a breath, her mouth jerking into a half-smile. Tom took it as a further invitation and reached for her. She didn’t think she wanted that, she _thought_ she wanted to be alone so she could stop time for just a little while until she found her balance, but he was warm and solid, and she melted against him as he pulled her close like he had in the astrometrics lab. Tears pricked at her eyes again and she blinked them away. Tears had never helped before; they didn’t make someone love you who didn’t, or take away hurt, or bring back the dead.

“I guess our date tonight is cancelled,” Tom said. “I told Chakotay he could have our holodeck time for the wake.”

She stiffened against his chest, her breath catching in her lungs, and pushed away from him. Chakotay had mentioned it to her, and she hadn’t forgotten, but… she had wondered if she could simply not attend. If, by not joining the rest of the Maquis in their tributes and stories and toasting, she could preserve the time when her friends were alive, and whole, and… not safe, exactly, but breathing at least. Preserve the idea that they might win their fight against the Cardassians. It wasn’t an option. Tabor, Chell, and half a dozen others had already come to her separately to ask her when the send-off would be. Chakotay had comm’ed her and told her that Janeway had offered them the forward observation deck for a formal service. He’d declined. They would do this the Maquis way, in a bar, likely reviving _Sandrine’s_. It was an obligation that she couldn’t ignore: the formal trappings of civilized society, when confronted with the barbaric, the incomprehensible. 

Tom had taken her hands in his, large and warm, his fingers curling around her chilled ones, covering them. “I’ll go with you, if you want,” he said. “For moral support.” His expression had softened; and his eyes were a clear, shocking, blue, crinkled at the corners as he studied her. 

She frowned; his words sounded ridiculous. “But you’re not a Ma—” But he had been, for a brief few weeks, five years ago. And even if his heart hadn’t been in their fight, his body had been, and he had known some of her dead friends. Perhaps mourned them. He had a right to be there, too. She was about to tell him so, but his jaw firmed and he let go of her hands, looked away. 

“I guess not,” he agreed. “But I know what it feels like to lose friends. I understand what you're going through.”

Anger bubbled inside her, pushing its way up her chest. “I doubt that you have any idea how I feel right now!” The words flew out of her mouth, heat-seeking, locking on their target. 

He was eyeing her, his expression carefully composed, but she saw his concern. 

“Are you—”

“I need to shower and change,” she said. It would be wrong, she decided, to show up in her ‘fleet uniform. She was glad that she’d saved her boots and vest and suede pants, even though she hadn’t worn them in a year or longer. 

Any other time, he might have taken her words for an invitation, but he stepped back, nodded again. He turned toward the door. One thing about a ‘fleeter, they knew a dismissal when they heard one. She almost laughed. 

He glanced back at her, stopping before his body activated the door’s sensors and opened. “B’Elanna, if you want to talk about it. Or…” His mouth compressed, and the skin around his eyes wrinkled with painful memory. “...even if you don’t. I’m here.” 

“I know.” The words were automatic, a programmed response to an expression of concern. 

He bent his head to kiss her, his hand cupping her cheek, fingers in her hair, his warmth and breath seductively familiar, and she leaned into him again, her fingers curling on his uniform jacket, palms pressed flat against his chest, registering the steady, rhythmic thud of his heartbeat. She wanted to climb into his heat; she wanted to be alone, encased in ice. He pressed his forehead to hers for a brief moment, then straightened. “I’m so sorry, B’Elanna,” he whispered. 

He was out the door and gone before the thought that, perhaps he understood after all, had fully formed in her mind. 

*  
It was late when she stepped off the ‘lift, toes catching in the carpet, staggering. Her outstretched hand caught the bulkhead so she didn’t fall. She pulled herself upright and set out, almost tripping over her feet in her exaggeratedly careful gait. Anyone who caught a whiff of her breath or saw the glassy sheen in her eyes would know that she was drunk. As a skunk! She almost giggled. 

She got the code on the first try, which wasn’t nothing, but she walked into a dining chair on her way to the bathroom. It was in the wrong place. So was the bathroom for that matter. 

“B’Elanna…?” Tom’s voice was low and gruff with sleep, more confused than curious at her being in his quarters univitied at 0200. 

Oh yeah. Tom’s quarters. She spun on her heel, tilting alarmingly before righting herself, and aimed for the orange glow that was the lights above his bed. She had very, very good memories of those lights; of colour painting pale skin in the dark, and the sound of his breath catching in his throat. Light and shadow; good and evil; winners and losers; the line between life and death defined by a breath. She shrugged out of her leather vest and dropped it on the floor.

Tom propped himself up on his elbows in the bed. “How… how’d it go?” he asked. His voice was stronger now, but no less wary.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she pulled her striped shirt over her head, then bent down and shoved on her tall boot, pushing its cuff below her knee. She stumbled again, but she’d reached the bed, and Tom sat up abruptly and caught her by the arms. “Easy,” he said. She giggled and spun, half landing within the circle of his arms as she sat on the bed and tugged and pulled at her boots until they hit the floor. 

Her head snapped up and she grinned. “D’you rem’ber when Chell brought some’a tha’ Bolian cheese onboard but didn’ tell anyone, an’ it smelled sooo bad, and we all though it was Meyer’s boots?” She snorted as she laughed, but Tom just shook his head. She patted him on the chest affectionately. “Must’a bin b’for your time,” she decided.

Her hands dropped to her waistband but she had trouble with the catch on her belt. She flopped backwards on the bed, her hands sliding off of her belly and onto the blankets. She turned her head and observed him, his face in shadow, orange light glinting off of his shoulders. “I wish I still had that drawing of a dragon that Li-Paz gave me.” Suddenly her eyes stung and began to well with tears, and she flung an arm over her face. She didn’t want Tom to witness her crying over something that wasn’t _his_ ; something that he had no part of.

“Hey,” he said, reaching for her again. 

He unlatched her belt and unbuttoned her pants, then shifted so he could pull them down her legs. He tossed them onto the end of the bed, then encouraged her to slide up toward the pillows and climb under the blankets. She was surrounded by warmth, the long, hot core of him, and she rolled toward him, pushing him onto his back and climbing on top of him, her legs straddling his thighs. 

“B’Elanna, this probably isn’t—”

“Shut up,” she said, then she kissed him, hard, grinding her mouth against his, tasting blood on her tongue as her teeth cut her lips. His hands were on her shoulders, pushing her upward, away, but she wouldn’t let go, then they were in her hair, pulling her closer. She could smell the gin—Joe Carey’s contribution to the wake, a cliched indiscretion that, until now, she could pretend she was unaware of—and she knew that Tom could likely taste it on her tongue, though he didn’t appear to mind. She released his mouth and drew in a few ragged breaths, the room spinning around her. His eyes were black with shadow. 

“B’Elanna, I’m not sure you—”

Need rose in her, basic and immediate, a feeling that was both more and, somehow, less than desire. She kissed him again to stop his flow of words; she _needed_ this, needed to feel his warm, living skin under her fingertips, to feel his hands on her. Sex and death were intriniscally entwined: life’s respose to the void, to its own sudden, shocking ending. 

She tore his boxer shorts along the seam and despite his protestations of a moment ago he was ready for her. She pulled her panties off and slammed down onto him, needing him inside her, needing him to fuck her hard and fast so that _he and them_ were all there was in the universe, their own little _living_ bubble of reality. His hands were clasped on her hips, his fingers digging into her flesh as he jerked up into her, grunting, and she heard her own voice pleading, begging him for more as she folded her body around him, her world compressing into sweat and gin-scented breath and heat and her own heartbeat pounding in her ears, her mouth gasping for air as her lungs heaved. The world spun.

She was on her back when he slid off of her and, in the time between his heat leaving her and his pulling the blankets over them, she registered a chill. Her skin pulled tight, sparked and shivered with it, not unlike an orgasm. Her lips twitched, her cheeks bunching and rounding, and she realized that she had tears in her eyes. Tom’s arms came around her then, strong and solid, and he pulled her against his long body. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. And she knew that he was.

*****

“ _Don’t try to console me; I don’t want to be comforted._

I don’t believe in an afterlife: all that stuff my mother tried to pound into my head when I was younger. Klingon myths about _Sto’vo’kor_ and _Gre’thor_ and the Barge of the Dead. It’s ridiculous. Stories told to children to get them to eat their _tlhatlh_. Or maybe I do believe it all. Maybe I believe in some sort of lifeforce that lives in all of us, an energy, a soul. 

But I know I’ll never see any of my friends again, no matter how much I try to convince myself that I will. They haven’t gone on to the next emanation, like Ptera was taught to believe. They aren’t waiting for me beyond the _dark veil_. And if they aren’t, if they’re truly gone, snuffed out, shut off like a powered down warpcore, then what’s the point of them ever being here at all? What’s the point of _any_ of us being here at all? To procreate? To ensure that our genetic material lives on after we’re gone? Why? Why even bother if everything that makes us _US_ is finished? 

*

B’Elanna slapped her combadge and drew a tired sigh. “Smithee, I nee—” She caught herself and quieted. Ann hadn’t even made it onto _Voyager_ four years ago; she’d died when the Caretaker had pulled the _Valjean_ halfway across the galaxy. Her brain insisted she comm McCaughey instead, but she’d died at the hands of the Hirogen a few weeks ago. They were still doing repairs, still attempting to put the ship back together after the Hirogen had forced Harry and a few of her engineers to expand the holodecks into the corridors and adjoining decks so their twisted _games_ could feel more realistic. B’Elanna snarled at the memory, not at the violation of being hunted, or of that—thankfully holographic—Nazi soldier pawing her, but at Janeway _bargaining_ with those monsters! She should have blown _Voyager_ to Hell and taken them all with them! 

A headache throbbed behind her eyes, and her stomach grumbled. She’d skipped breakfast, and lunch, and was pretty sure she’d missed dinner, too. In the weeks since they’d received their letters from home, before the Hirogen had taken _Voyager_ , Tom had appointed himself ‘mother hen’, comm’ing her to check up on her during the day, showing up to pull her out of engineering for meals, trying to entice her onto the holodeck for some foolishness or other. As if she had any interest in dressing up in some stupid costume and playing some equally stupid novel. Real life was dramatic enough for her! And she doubted she’d be back in the holodeck for a long time, now… 

He’d been bizarrely attentive to her, employing all the tools of a first year counsellor: a soft tone, a steady, open expression on his face while she spoke to prove to her that he was listening. Offering to help her with minor repairs when he wasn’t seeing to his own duties, and gently encouraging her to rest, to relax, to eat, to be around other people and not spend all of her off time in her quarters. Once, when he’d enticed her out of her office with the promise of a replicated lunch, he’d rested his hand on her back as they were walking down the corridor on the way to the mess. His palm through her uniform had felt hot and possessive and _restraining_. He’d let her walk into the messhall ahead of him rather than walking in together. It was… weird. It took her a few days to figure it out. He was concerned she might blow, explode, spiral downward like he had after his friends had died in the accident at Caldik Prime. It wasn’t the same thing at all! And it irritated her that he thought it was. 

His carelessness on a training mission had caused the deaths of those officers, or so the rumour went. Her friends had be _slaughtered_ by a merciless, vile waste of sentience, and the Federation, whose members pretended to be so enlightened, so tolerant and civilized, had done nothing to stop it! Had helped to hunt them down and murder them! 

She’d wanted to scream at him, to rail at him, to rip off her uniform and spit on it! But... he was concerned and was just trying to help. His worry for her was a tangible thing that tasted sickly-sweet and threatened to gag her. She’d started to avoid him, to evade him and Chakotay both (and Neelix and Harry, and even Vorik’s dark, steady gaze). She’d ordered more diagnostics, checking and rechecking systems and, more often than not, climbing into Jefferies tubes herself, enjoying the peace. Allowing her mind to be suspended in cool, flawless quiet while her hands did the work by rote. Pushing thoughts of her lost friends away, not even dwelling on memories, dulling her emotions, smothering them.

The pain, when it came, was shocking. She gasped, dropping the ‘spanner and clutching her wrist, her fingers curling around her injured hand, cradling it. She stared at the line of bright blood welling on her palm as if it was something foriegn and not a part of her leaking out. The blood started to snake down her wrist, and she tilted her hand so it dripped onto the deck plates. The pain had become a dull throb. 

Just her luck that Tom was on duty when she walked into sickbay. 

“B’Elanna!” He’d been tapping a note onto a PADD when she came in, but he dropped it and rushed toward her. He cradled her shoulders in his hands as he nudged her toward a biobed and helped her onto it. “What happened?” 

“Nothing. It’s fine. Just a scratch.” Irritation welled in her, hot and insistent and coming out of nowhere.

“It doesn’t look like nothing to me,” he replied. He pulled an instrument caddy closer and grabbed a medical tricorder. He laid the device beside her on the bed then held her hand in his while he ran the wand over her palm. 

“It’s fine,” she insisted. 

He was frowning, lips pressed together, his mouth drawn into a tight line. He swapped the tricorder for a dermal regenerator. “Why don’t you let me decide that?” His voice was even but she detected a note of anger in his tone, of frustration or impatience. She puffed a breath and shifted on the bed. His fingers tightened on her hand. “Hold still. There’s some nerve damage. If I don’t do this right, you may not get back full use of your hand.” 

Typical Tom Paris hyperbole. Her temper rose to match his, and she yanked her hand out of his grip and hopped down from the biobed. She flexed her fingers to prove to him that she had a full range of movement. He’d closed the wound, but the remaining blood was sticky, pulling her skin. “I’m fine,” she repeated. 

“B’Elanna!” 

He grabbed her arm as she attempted to sail past him on her way to the door, and she spun around to face him. “What?” 

“You cancelled lunch on me. Again.” 

His forehead creased with concern, and she sighed. “There’s still a lot of work to do to put the ship back together,” she explained, knowing what was coming. 

“There’s always something to do. You still have to eat.” 

Irritation flared in her again, licking at the edges of her hard-won peace. She smothered it. “I eat.” 

“Not with me.” 

Her breath came out of her in a whoosh as she laughed at that statement. “You’re around me all the time,” she accused. “I can’t have a minute’s peace; you’re comm’ing me, or dropping by engineering, or sending Harry to check on me!” She clamped her mouth shut and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see the hurt on Tom’s face or the coolness in his eyes as he slipped on that mask of invulnerability. 

“You’re barely eating,” he insisted. “You’re barely sleeping. All you’re doing is working—”

“Because the Hirogen practically tore the ship apart!” She was glad sickbay was empty so they didn’t have an audience. “I’m sorry, Tom, if you’re bored. If,” her words were deliberate, calculated to push him away, “I’m not being as fun or _attentive_ right now as you think I should be.”

“Attentive?”

“I’m too busy to laugh at your jokes or marvel at your new holodeck programme idea.” She knew that wasn’t fair but, now that she’d begun, she couldn't seem to stop her herself from speaking.

“You’re shutting yourself off,” he countered”. From me, from Harry, Chakotay. I know what you’re doing. I understand that you’re pushing us all away so you won’t be hurt if—”

“Oh, give me a break! I don’t have time to play with you, Tom. Until the ship is back up to spec, we’re sitting ducks if the Hirogen decide to come back.”

“You’re using it as an excuse—”

“For god’s sake, Tom, I’m fine. Would you give me some space!” Her hands were raised, balled into fists, and she wondered for a moment if she was about to strike him. She might, if he didn’t shut the hell up! 

His chin had lifted, his jaw firmed, and the expression in his eyes was flinty. “Okay.” He nodded, then turned his back on her as he gathered up the instruments and placed them back on the tray. “You let me know when you have time to see me again.”

The self-pitying, subtle dig was aimed to make her feel guilty for doing her job! She turned and left without comment; without a backward glance. And he wondered why she wanted to be alone… 

“ _Nicoletti to Torres._ ” 

B’Elanna tapped her combadge “Go ahead.”

“ _We’ve finished repairs on holodeck one. I was about to run a programme to test it._ ”

“Okay. Let me know if there are any… Wait. Belay that.” B’Elanna paused, then backtracked toward the ‘lift. “I’ll check it out myself. You see if Vorik needs any help with the sensor grid.”

“ _Acknowledged._ ”

B’Elanna ran her fingers along the wall as she approached the holodeck. It was clean and smooth, any scorched or damaged sections replaced. The cover to the exterior holodeck interface was secured and, except for some burn marks and small tears in the carpet, it looked like it always did. Like normal. _Sandrine’s_ would be a good test, she thought, especially if she included the pool table. Or she could call up Tom’s sailing programme. But… She was still twitchy from their argument, her muscles were still tight with tension, electricity feeling like it was sparking on her skin. 

She accessed the library and tapped in her code, then pulled up her workout programme. She drew the fastener on her uniform and slipped it off as she stepped through the holodeck door into a jungle habitat. Heat and humidity struck her, and she could smell the loamy earth beneath her feet, the fresh scent of green growing things. Sunlight glinted through a canopy of leaves, and she could hear birds calling, insects buzzing. An animal screeched in the distance. She pulled her shirt over her head and dropped it to the ground. “Computer, one _d'k tahg_.”

The knife materialized in her hand, it’s three blades looking sharp and deadly. She heard a low growl, and her skin prickled; the hair on the back of her neck felt like it stood on end. She was being watched by something hidden in the shadows. 

She gripped the handle of the blade and began her hunt. 

*****

“ _If someone you loved was missing, you’d be the first one out that door!_ ”

I try to grasp the idea that they’re gone. I roll it around on my tongue, gently bite down on it (I can be gentle when I bite, sometimes), sample the flavour of grief and shocked disbelief. But my brain refuses to accept the information, even now. A dozen times a day, I catch myself thinking of Roberto and his _Veloz squirrel stew_. K’Terra’s laughing eyes as she encouraged me to mischief: “Sure, do it. Why not…?”. 

Meyer. 

Even Seska, despite her cruelly pointed betrayal of us all, because she’s intrinsically entwined with the word ‘Maquis’ in my mind. I want to ask her if she ever faltered, even once. If, when she looked at us, fought with us, schemed with us, celebrated with us, if she’d ever once been swayed, or even tempted to understand why we were fighting so hard to rid our lives of her people’s sadistic cruelty. I’ll never know.

I want to ask Sahreen when her nephew’s birthday is, or whether or not Chakotay likes fruitcake, and who it was who had that allergy to kava nuts and puffed up like a gob’rax when we ate them around the fire that night on Marva Prime… But then I remember that I can’t anymore. Ever again.

*

She ran. When Lewis comm’ed and told her that they’d found Tom and Harry, but that they’d collapsed as soon as they were beamed back aboard, B’Elanna ran. She’d demanded Tom back off and give her room to breathe, and he had, but as soon as she’d heard that he and Harry were missing on the Demon planet, panic had hit her. She’d been ready to beam down herself and lead the search. She couldn't lose Tom, too. She couldn’t. 

In the five minutes or so it took the turbolift to carry her to sickbay, her brain had conjured a hundred different scenarios from Tom’s death to his miraculous recovery. She almost ran down the captain as the doors to sickbay parted, Janeway leaving while B’Elanna rushed inside. 

“B’Elanna,” Janeway caught her arm, halting her just inside the doorway. “They’re alright for now. The Doctor has managed to stabilize them.” 

“Good.” She nodded and pulled her arm from the captain’s loose grip. Tom had noticed her and jumped down from his biobed. 

“Lieutenant, wait.” 

The Doctor called to her but she ignored him. She bounced off the forcefield, momentarily stunned, more by the realization that it was in place at all than by the electric charge that had zapped her. “What the hell?” 

Tom was in front of her, and she reached out only to have her fingers activate the forcefield again. She snatched her hand back. “What’s going on?” she asked. 

“Well,” Tom began, “that’s the surreal part. Something happened to us when we were down on the planet.” 

She glanced from Tom to Harry, who was sitting quietly on his bunk. “Something?” 

“It appears that they can only breathe the atmosphere on the planet,” the Doctor told her. “The forcefield is to keep them alive.” 

“What? Why?” Fear slammed into her, and her heart pounded in her chest.

“That’s what I’m trying to determine,” the Doctor said. His tone softened. “They’re fine for now. Aside from an allergy to Oxygen, they’re healthy. You can visit for a while, if you like, while I run some tests.” 

Tom looked chagrined. “And I thought we’d had enough walls between us,” he said quietly. 

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I…” 

“It’s okay.” He smiled that smile that made her go a little weak in the knees. “I kinda like the way you ran right into that forcefield when you thought I was injured.” 

She laughed. 

“I’m okay, too,” Harry chimed in. He was staring at the Doctor, watching him work, deliberately not looking at them. 

B’Elanna sent him a smile. “Good.” She was suddenly conscious of just how public this reunion was. “We still have repairs to complete.” 

“Well, I’m glad you got the transporter working,” Harry said. “Or we’d still be on the planet.” 

B’Elanna just laughed. She owed Vorik an apology. 

*

Sickbay was quiet, the lights dimmed. The Doctor was in his office studiously working on a report. B’Elanna ran her fingers through Tom’s hair, smoothing it from his forehead. He and Harry were sleeping, recovering from the hypoxia they’d suffered on the planet. She was thankful that their EV suits had put them in a coma when they’d run out of oxygen. It reminded her of when she and Tom had been hanging in space, during the Day of Honor. She’d been certain they were about to die; it was the only reason why she’d confessed her feelings to him. If she hadn’t been so oxygen deprived, if she’d remembered the built-in safeguard, she probably wouldn’t have said a word. Would she have been better off, she wondered? Would they? For all the love and sweetness and passion they’d experienced in the last ten months, there’d been pain, too. But really, ultimately, that was the price of loving someone, wasn’t it? 

“What have you decided?” 

Tom’s voice was low, and she glanced down, momentarily confused. He was sound asleep. 

“Are you going to donate a sample of your dna so we can copy it?”

She turned. The other Tom, the false Tom, was standing just inside the boundary of the forcefield, staring steadily at her. “Why are you still here?” she demanded. ‘They’ had already stolen her dna! It had been horrific, like something out of one of Tom’s monster movies, that silver liquid sliding onto her skin not cold but not warm either. Then sliding off again, purposefully, as if it knew where it was going. Morphing into an exact replica of her thumb. The thought of it sickened her, enraged her! 

“I needed to talk to you,” it said. “I knew you’d come here eventually to see… him.” 

She didn’t answer. She looked back down at _her_ Tom and reached to straighten his blanket. 

“I know that it’s been hard for us… you, for the last few months,” he began. “It hasn’t been like before, when we first started seeing each other.” 

Her head snapped up at that and she turned to face him. It. Images of Jefferies tubes, and her console on the upper engineering deck, and his sonic shower flooded her mind. She saw her memories reflected on his face. “ _We_ have never… You’re not him. You don’t mean anything to me.”

“But you mean something to me!” His volume rose, and the Doctor glanced up from his computer monitor. “B’Elanna, you mean everything to me.” He was quiet now, his eyes pleading, and she almost believed him. “I don’t want to be without you down there. I can’t imagine being without you.” 

She shook her head, the ridiculousness of his statement ringing in her ears. “You’re just a piece of that planet. You weren’t even sentient, not in the way we understand it, until you stole Tom and Harry’s dna. You’re just a Tom-shaped chunk of deuterium and hydrogen sulphate and dichromates, with a little protein thrown in. You are not Tom Paris.”

He reached for her and the forcefield crackled as it made contact with his hand. “I have his memories, B’Elanna. His thoughts. In every way that counts, I am him. And I need you.” 

She shook her head, anger swelling inside of her, and she stepped toward the door. 

“No,” he said. “Don’t go. Don’t walk out on me again!” 

There was a hard edge to his tone, a little flash of the Tom Paris temper, and it made her pause. 

“Please. It’s been hard, lately. You’ve been busy with repairs, and I haven’t been as… involved as I should have been. I know that. I don’t know exactly when things changed but—”

“I’m not talking about this right now,” she snapped. “Especially not with you.” 

“B’Elanna. Please. Wait.”

She paused, her back to him, but she was listening.

“We’ve lost so many people in the last five years. Friends. And you don’t talk about it, but I know how upset you were when Chakotay got that letter.” She tensed, ready to walk out the door. “I need you. And I know you still need me, or you wouldn’t have ran into this damn forcefield a few hours ago, when you thought I was him.” 

She couldn’t help but smile at that; she must have looked ridiculous. 

“If you were in my place, wouldn’t you want me with you? You told me you love me—him—don’t you care about me at all?” 

She turned back to him. “Of course I do.”

“Then don’t make me be alone down there. I have no idea how long we live, and if we really are part of that planet…” His words trailed off as they both realized the enormity of what he was saying. “I don’t want to spend billions of years without you.” 

The idea of another her out there with her memories, looking like her and calling herself—itself—B’Elanna, was unnerving. A fake. A copy. But she couldn’t tell him no. As much as she’d distanced herself from Tom—her Tom—she couldn’t force that other-Tom to be alone, without that other-B’Elanna, for the rest of his life. 

“Okay.” She was surprised at how strong, how certain, she sounded. “Okay, you can have my dna.” 

His eyes closed and his head dropped back in relief. The gesture was so familiar that it was almost painful. It was good, she realized, and she felt a strange peace, a warmth, to know that if she died here, on _Voyager_ , like Kurt Bendara or Darwin, or Hogan, that a piece of her, a version of her, would continue. 

Other-Tom reached for her again before remembering the forcefield and letting his hands drop back to his sides. “Thank you.”

She glanced at her Tom, still asleep on the biobed, then back at his imposter. His twin. He was staring at her in a way that her own Tom hadn’t in a long time, his gratitude, his emotions, written clearly on his face. Her mouth twitched into a smile. She hoped that he and her copy would be happy. She walked into the Doctor’s office.

*** 

“ _Do I look like I’m dying?_ ”

Then. And now. There and here.

We were separated five years ago when the Caretaker pulled us to the ass-end of the galaxy and in my head, nothing’s changed. There was nothing I could do about it besides keeping _Voyager_ going and hope for a miracle. Keep myself going. Circumstances had isolated us from them. I couldn’t see them, or touch them, or talk to them. But I’d decided to believe that they were out there, out of reach but safe, still fighting, winning, until I had proof otherwise. And it was easy to tuck them away in the back of my mind, like tucking them into a back pocket. They were with me, even if I didn’t always remember that they were there. 

There was space between us, measured in time and distance: seventy thousand light years, then sixty. Fifty-five. Five years on and the Alpha Quadrant is still a lifetime away. And I know that some lifetimes are shorter than others, and that no matter how long someone lives their friends will still feel cheated when they die. But it feels like I’ve had something stolen from me. 

I feel alone, removed somehow. I know I’m not. I live with a hundred and fifty other people, constantly underfoot, always _here_ even when I’m alone in my office or my quarters. I practically have to crawl into a Jefferies tube to get away from them and even then I never know when someone will comm me, or _need_ me for some simple task that they could do themselves if they’d just—

When we passed that mutura-class nebula I thought, I have to tell Nelson, our amature astronomer, about it when we get home. Then I remember that I can’t. And the people around me, _Voyager’s_ crew, my crew, just continue on with their lives, reporting for duty, and taking meals in the mess, and booking holodeck time as if nothing is different. As if nothing’s changed. As if the universe hasn’t imploded around me, without any warning. It’s absurd. 

I know I’m not happy, but I’m not unhappy either. I’m worn out. Worn smooth, like a pebble in a river. I want to settle into the silt on the bottom of the riverbed where I can watch the water rushing above me, view the light and shadow of sunbeams and the chaos of the rapids without having any of it touch me. Like I’m still asleep, still in stasis, with the nebula swirling around me on the other side of _Voyager’s_ hull. 

*

They’d done a number on the new shuttle. It would likely take weeks to repair, and they still had to figure out the problem with the hull’s structural integrity; next time, an old Maquis trick might not be enough to keep them from being ripped apart. She and Tom had surveyed the damage and drawn up a repair schedule. He’d moved around her cautiously, his body, his _self_ occupying the space next to her, but he’d been careful not to breach her boundaries. She’d caught his eyes on her more than once. For once, she was grateful that Vorik was underfoot.

She’d left the shuttle without saying anything more to him than procedure demanded, slapping her combadge on her way across the bay to tell Harry to meet her in engineering. She didn't know if Tom had heard her through the open hatch or not. She’d created a gulf between them; a divide. An impasse. She needed to decide if she wanted to breach it, to find a way around it, or let it widen. But she didn’t know how. Her thoughts drifted to their dopplegangers on that Demon planet and she wondered if they had found a way. 

Harry and Seven had been analyzing the information from the probe that they’d recovered. He was waiting for her in engineering when she arrived, and he handed her a PADD with his preliminary report. “No dragons,” he said, “but we found evidence of a micro wormhole.” 

“Dragons?” she asked. 

“Yeah. You know, ‘Here be dragons’. Except, that’s actually just a legend; there weren’t any ancient Earth maps with those words written on them. They used to draw monsters in the lands at the edge of the map: dragons, and trolls, and people with giant feet, or their heads in their stomachs, as a warning to be careful if you strayed too far from home. The great unknown.” He lifted a hand to encompass the space outside the ship. “I’d say we’ve encountered our share of monsters in the lands of the Delta Quadrant,” he said.

Her mouth twitched in a smile. It was good to hear Harry being fanciful; he tended to be too serious lately. Her stomach growled and Harry’s eyebrow rose. “I guess we found them, after all. The dragons.” He pointed at her belly.

She laughed at that. And it felt good. 

“How long has it been since you’ve eaten?” he asked.

She was instantly on alert, tense, her mood souring. “Did Tom tell you to keep an eye on me?” 

He looked bewildered. “No. Tom hasn’t said anything to me about you.” His expression morphed into a frown. “B’Elanna, what’s going on between you two?” 

Tom hadn’t told him… Harry didn’t know about the holodeck, her injuries. She was relieved. “Nothing,” she answered.

“To be honest,” he said, “that’s exactly what it looks like: a whole lot of nothing. I thought your two were…” 

He was asking her if it was over between her and Tom. She didn’t know, but she knew then that she didn’t want it to be. She squeezed his arm. “We are. We’re fine, or we will be.” Her stomach growled again, and this time Harry laughed. 

“Why don’t you grab something to eat before you scare someone, and I’ll let you know when Seven and I are finished going over all the data the probe collected?” 

B’Elanna nodded. “You’re right; I’m starving all of a sudden.” 

She gave the PADD back to Harry and left engineering, not bothering to check on her staff. They knew their jobs, and didn’t need her standing over them. The turbolift doors parted and she called for deck two. Her thoughts drifted to her copy again, B’Elanna 2.0, and she wondered if she was with her Tom right now. Maybe they were eating—did they eat?—or relaxing together, or making love. She hit her combadge and called him before she could overthink it. “Torres to Paris.” 

His reply was prompt, and his tone detached. “ _Paris, here._ ” 

She hesitated only a second. “If I bring the burgundy, is that dinner invitation still open?” 

There was a pause, then his voice was filled with warmth and a note of surprise that he couldn’t fully hide. “ _Sure. I’ll be caught up here for a while, though. Twenty hundred? The messhall or my quarters?_ ”

“How about mine?” She could still kick him out of her quarters, but she hoped that offering to eat there proved to him that she wasn’t planning to run away from him again.

“ _It’s a date,_ ” he replied. “ _See you in a few hours._ ” 

More than a few. Her stomach growled for a third time as she stepped off the turbolift. The thought of banana pancakes danced in her head. This time she’d finish the whole plate. 

*****


End file.
